


running wild with vengeance

by smilebackwards



Category: A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen, Horror, Prequel, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: For every monarchy, there is a revolution in waiting.





	running wild with vengeance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts).



“You’re a terrible spy,” was the first thing Sherlock ever said to me. He took up a seat next to me at the bar.

It was true. I was a soldier, trained for combat, not duplicity. “What makes you think I’m a spy?” I asked. A wilted, unconvincing attempt at redirection even to my own ears.

Sherlock looked at me with a mixture of pity and amused disdain. “At least try to conceal your disgust for our illustrious overlords,” he said. 

Looking across the room at the six-limbed Golden Sphinx and the cruel, perpetual curve of her maw, I found it difficult but I tucked back my feelings one by one. Goodbye to disgust, to anger, to hatred, to fear, until my face was a blank canvas, as smooth and calm as that lake in the underground caverns of Afghanistan. Still and reflective, but with horror waiting beneath. 

Under the bar, my hand found my pistol.

“Better,” Sherlock said. “Now come with me.”

 

For every monarchy, there is a revolution in waiting. 

I hadn’t looked for it and hadn’t thought to. If Sherlock hadn’t come to me, I should have spent the six shots of my pistol in cold useless rage and thereafter been confined to the madhouses or hung from the gallows at The Sepulcher of Night. The Old Ones do not tolerate dissent. Even ambivalence may be punished. They will accept no less than worship and adoration. A new shrine is built every hour.

The resistance effort has no name. It is hidden and slow but it is tireless. Humanity has been more patient than some might guess.

 

I write stories sometimes. Revisionist history. Satire. A means to an end. 

This is the truth: We started with the youngest.

Perhaps some might think that cruel. Let me be clear. The Pale Stranger was fifty thousand years old. We are the young ones. And they started with us first.

The Pale Stranger was a relative to the White Lady of the Antarctic Fastness, so recently risen that no cult had yet produced chapter or hymn for him. We struck him from the record before he could be recorded. There is a time of weakness for them between when they emerge from the depths and when the blood moon takes hold. I needed only my knife. 

Sherlock held the lamp for me. We did our work on the tilting deck of a steamer. The oceans are not theirs as they like to believe. 

Wear gloves if you should ever attempt such an autopsy. I was not so well prepared. The blood stung my hands like a thousand tiny needles, a natural enemy. 

Glass, however, does not suffer. We drained ten pints, green and viscous, almost phosphorescent, for analysis. Sherlock, of course, wrote the definitive treatise but we circulated vials to every sympathetic corner of the globe. 

The heart-like organ I pulled from The Pale Stranger was large. Ironic. Heartless, we’ve called them in whispers and speakeasies. Black hearted would be more correct anatomically. The organ was dark as pitch. It weighed like a stone in my palms. Later, I cracked it open with a chisel and it split like a geode, full of sharp facets. 

  


There is no communication between our world and ancient R’lyeh. The Old Ones do not send back gifts or greetings. When their own bloodlines cross to Earth, there is joy but no warning. This is how we have begun to seek our victories. Quietly.

In the thin places our revolutionaries wait, armed and ready. It has been a full five years since the Old Ones have added to their ranks. I do not think they have noticed. Time passes differently for them. How many centuries has Gloriana reigned? Our histories before them are hard to come by. But they exist. Remember that.

Forgive me, time is short. I hope our story will be long, but I must rush quickly to a conclusion here. Do not falter. Do not give up. The next chapter is soon to begin. To stem the tide is one thing; open war will be another. In all the years they have been here—those entrenched—no Old One has ever died.

It will be a shock to them. They will set the hounds after us. 

I hope that friendship and fervor hold stronger than fear. My knives are sharp. I am ready.


End file.
